Traffic - The Last Great Traffic Jam (with Bonus CD)
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DVD details
Actor: TrafficDirector: *
Brand: Sony
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Running Time: 100 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-09-20
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Sony
DVD Reviews of Traffic - The Last Great Traffic Jam (with Bonus CD)
DVD Review: Musically Thrilling, but Video Record of this Immaculate Show a little disappointing
Summary: 4 Stars
I remember this show very well.Just as the sun dipped out of sight the stage lights went on and the band blasted into "Pearly Queen" and "Medicated Goo" and it was like muscial heaven hearing this stuff actually played live (after hearing it so many times on CD). The only way to really experience TRAFFIC is live and this tour was the last chance to do that (now that Wood and Capaldi are both gone). TRAFFIC's sound remains unique, its never really been imitated. And this band has never received much radio attention (save the occasional "Dear Mr. Fantasy") and though everyone knows who Steve Winwood is, a lot of people still don't know TRAFFIC's music. But thats fine with me, they are like a well kept secret and this allowed us fans to be able to actually afford tickets to see them when they came through our towns in the summer of '94. Another advantage of this bands notoriety-lesness is that none of these songs sound dated. In fact much of the TRAFFIC catalogue (with the exception of a few psychedelic numbers on their first two albums)sounds timeless (I'm thinking here especially of the JOHN BARLEYCORN and WHEN THE EAGLE FLIES albums). Masterfully played and highly evocative folk and jazz as well as good ol' blues-based rock does not date. Hearing these styles played next to each other as well as mixed together is as exciting as music gets. I must say,though, that the sole number played from their new album FAR FROM HOME called "Mozambique" sounds a bit too much like SANTANA. That doesn't mean its not a good song and I love SANTANA but it didn't make me want to buy FAR FROM HOME.
I was not a first generation TRAFFIC fan but I became interested in the band in the early 90's so this tour came along at just the right time for me. I've never been a Steve Winwood fan and his solo stuff just seems weak and souless to me. I would say his solo stuff sounds like a watered down radio friendly TRAFFIC or a TRAFFIC without the imagination but to my ears his solo stuff just doesn't sound like TRAFFIC at all. With the SPENCER DAVIS GROUP and with BLIND FAITH (and a live DVD of BLIND FAITH is now available as well) and especially with TRAFFIC, however, Winwood made music that is absolutely unique and has that unforgettable magic to it that few folk/rock/jazz/blues groups or groups of any kind ever capture.
This was really a great show, and the art work that was displayed behind the band was perfect, mysterious and a bit surreal though in a very appealing way, so the show was evocative to the ear and the eye.
Plus it was summertime, outside, and a river flowed quietly behind the stage as the band played. I don't think I stopped grinning through the whole set.
That said I was somewhat disappointed with this DVD as it just didn't match my own memory of this show. The filmmaking here is just plain amateurish so as a collection of great songs this works, but as a concert artifact I think its much less succesful. That amateurism might have worked had the filmmakers simply employed handmade cameras for that would have created an improvised spontaneous feel to go along with the spontneous improvised music. The filmakers should have taken a more subdued, as well as maybe a bit more avant-garde approach, but, instead, the filmamkers got busy and decided to decorate or trash a perfectly good concert video with some unforgivably cheesy and painfully obvious special effects and visual metaphors (traffic lights, time-lapse highway travel, traffic)which were nowhere near as subtle and evocative as the graphics that adorned the stage. These 'special' effects were just not that special, and they give the video all of the visual mystery and excitement of a local televison commercial. The idea, apparently, was to share with the DVD audience the feel of traveling with the band but the filmmakers seem to forget that what we want to watch over and over is not the interviews and sound bites and jump-cuts to band members getting on tour buses or hanging out in hotel rooms(unless its a band that is doing something that we want to see like say the Stones in '72 ) but these guys when offstage just seem like ordinary guys who are not really interested in tearing it up. The music itself is what counts, the musicians say so themselves, and thats what we want too, the music. Lets face it Winwood is a genius onstage (so long as he's surrounded by great players that allow him to jam) but a dynamic off-stage presence he's not, so he's just not that interesting to follow around. Capaldi, on the other hand, has great camera presence and his character and humor really come across. His mugging for the camera is on occasion pretty funny. But, on several occasions, the filmakers cut-away from musical jams in progress in order to give us more of this stuff and this is sheer madness. When you buy a live album or a live DVD (especially one of a band that is known for its awesome jam potential) the one thing that you do not want is for those jams to be interrupted or edited or interefered with in any way. This music is sacred so light up, enjoy, and leave it alone. Really not cool of the vidoegraphers to cut-away mid-jam ever for any reason! Note to future concert vidoegraphers: keep camera focused on the band, watching them play is plenty of entertainment. If you want to cut-away occasionally to show crowd shots thats fine so long as its a shot of a dancing girl soaking-up-the-music-and-sun, but no cut-aways that involve cutting songs short (as these filmmakers do in the middle of "Glad"). Also probably would have been best to leave Jerry Garcia out of the "Dear Mr. Fantasy" sequence, Jerry just wasn't feeling the song, so why do we need to watch Jerry not Feelin' all that Alright. I love Jerry but I don't want a video record of this particular moment which was not one of his best.
I am guessing that this DVD was the work of more than one filmmaker because occasionally it does achieve that ground level and grassroots feel that we want from a live performance that we attended and have more than fond memories of. Of course the people we see at the concert on this video are not the ones we saw when we were there (our own absence from the procedings is maybe why concert videos always seem to be mssing some key ingredient) but it is nice to be reminded that part of the concert experience is what happens before the show, and what happens offstage in the audience during the show while sitting on the grass among strangers who are nonetheless feeling the vibe along with ya.
No better show opener than "Pearly Queen" and no better show closer than the TRAFFIC version (complete with long drum build up) of "Gimme Some Lovin'".....lots of good stuff inbetween as well..."40,000 headmen" & "John Barleycorn".....
At the show I saw I do seem to remember hearing "Empty Pages" and "Dream Gerard" in addition to the rest of the set list on this DVD. So, what's up videographers?
By the way these performances sound virtually identical to the live versions of these songs on WELCOME TO THE CANTEEN and that is not a bad thing since that is one of the best live albums I've ever heard. If you are new to TRAFFIC and don't really want or need a concert DVD but want to experience the live TRAFFIC then WELCOME TO THE CANTEEN is the way to go. CANTEEN has "Pearly Queen" and "Medicated Goo" as well as "40,000 Headmen" and "Dear Mr. Fantasy" and Gimme Some Lovin'" but it also has three Dave Mason songs so you get "Feelin' Alright", "Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave", and "Sad and Deep as You."
Description of Traffic - The Last Great Traffic Jam (with Bonus CD)
LAST GREAT TRAFFIC JAM - DVD Movie"Eclectic" is a description that's been overused to the point of cliché, but it certainly applies to Traffic, whose 1994 U.S. Tour is documented in The Last Great Traffic Jam. Here was a band, formed in the late '60s, who played psychedelic rock, melodic pop, and traditional folk, with occasional dashes of jazz and world music added to the mix, fronted by Steve Winwood, a preternaturally gifted musician whose inspired soul and R&B vocals earned him comparisons with Ray Charles. Co-founder Chris Wood died in 1983, but in his absence, Winwood and fellow original member Jim Capaldi (drums, vocals) put together a fine touring band, with Randall Bramblett (woodwinds, keyboards) a capable replacement for Wood and Rosko Gee (bass), Walfredo Reyes Jr. (drums, percussion), and Jim McEvoy (keyboards, guitar) filling out the lineup. Traffic lovers may be disappointed that the likes of "Paper Sun" and "Feelin' Alright" aren't on the set list, but the band's inspired versions of other classics, especially "40,000 Headmen," "John Barleycorn," "Glad," "The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys," and "Gimme Some Lovin'" (Winwood's hit with the Spencer Davis Group), reveal just how good this band was. The DVD (which included a bonus CD with three informal studio recordings) isn't perfect; there are too many distracting film effects for this reviewer's taste, and Jerry Garcia's guest appearance on "Dear Mr. Fantasy" is painful, as the Grateful Dead guitarist plays tentatively and looks generally lost and Brian Wilson-esque onstage (Garcia died the following year). Still, despite Winwood's various other incarnations (with Davis, with Blind Faith, and as a solo artist), his stint with Traffic yielded the best music of his career, and The Last Great Traffic Jam--which really is "the last," as Capaldi is now dead as well--is a must-have for the group's fans. --Sam Graham
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